BP oil spill: Where are they now?

It has been nearly a year since a swell of methane gas raced up the Macondo well’s drilling line and turned the Deepwater Horizon rig into a fireball that killed 11 men, set off a Gulf of Mexico oil spill that rivals any in U.S. history and left thousands of lives forever altered.

For days, rescuers looked for the missing workers; for months, oil spilled from the well into the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem; and for years, people will debate the spill’s ultimate impact and what should be learned from it.

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Here’s a look at where five of the key — or forgotten — players are now:

Thad Allen

Allen was scheduled to finish his four-year term as commandant of the Coast Guard in May 2010, but his retirement was postponed when President Barack Obama named him national incident commander of the BP spill.

“There’s physical exhaustion. There’s always a significant emotional burden. You have to acknowledge these are awful events,” he told POLITICO. “It takes discipline to say, ‘in spite of that.’ You sort of put that aside and do your job.”

Allen retired from the Coast Guard on June 30, and in December, he took a job as a senior fellow at Rand Corp., a national security research firm.

Even a year later, it is difficult to know who is to blame for the explosion and the ensuing spill, Allen said. “I think it’s a collective, multiple failure,” he said.

“There were probably multiple times where multiple people could have said, ‘Wait a minute, something’s wrong,’” he added. “And there were probably multiple points where if any one person would have done that, this would have been stopped.”

Tony Hayward

In the early weeks of the spill, the media were looking for a villain in the narrative, and Hayward, BP’s chief executive officer, seemed to fit the bill.

Hayward’s decline started with five words he undoubtedly wishes he hadn’t said: “I’d like my life back,” he said before a television camera in May, enraging the families of those whose own lives would never be restored.

And in June, with oil still flowing into the Gulf, Hayward was again the subject of public ire when photos were released of him participating in a yacht race.

In July, Hayward announced he would step down, making way for the new CEO, Robert Dudley. He formally left his post, collecting a $1.8 million severance package. Like other BP executives in 2010, he did not collect a bonus.

Now, the former CEO is far from homeless. Shortly after Hayward stepped down in October, BP nominated him to serve on the board of BP-TNK, a joint venture between BP and a Russian firm. Hayward now holds one of 11 seats on the BP-TNK board, for which he is paid $150,000 annually.